Saturday, June 30, 2012

Unconsenting Kitty Blood Donors: Quote in Article

As I was waiting to go to North Carolina for my summer vacation, I checked my e-mail in the Porter Airlines waiting area and got a request for a comment on this slavery practice. I think that staff reporter with the Toronto Star, Sarah-Taissir Bencharif, gets across how disturbing the practice is. The article appeared on June 25, 2012.

My views were more or less accurately represented as follows:

Though these donations can save the lives of other cats, not everyone agrees the ends justify the means. Animal ethicist David Sztybel likens programs like this to nonhuman slavery.

“I respect the good intentions of these medical professionals, and they are saving lives. I appreciate that some effort may be made to socialize the slave-cats, play with them, and so on. But I do not agree with slavery, and oppose human slavery even though many benefits were squeezed from the practice,” he writes in an email.

The author probably intended to write that I liken the practice to human slavery, not "nonhuman slavery" as she writes. I do not liken this to nonhuman slavery in any event. It is a straigtforward and literal example of enslaving nonhumans.

About Me

David Sztybel, Ph.D. has been an animal rights activist since 1986. He has published numerous articles pertaining to the liberation of all sentient beings and has lectured at the University of Toronto, Queen's University, and Brock University.
See David Sztybel's Cyberpage at:
davidsztybel.info